SPEED LIMIT

Speed Limit

Jazz Rock/Fusion

3.07 | 18 ratings

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Sean Trane
Special Collaborator
Prog Folk

3.5 starts really!!!

Speed Limit's debut album is a very interesting collaboration between ex-Magma and ex-Zao Seffer and Bucchi (the other pillar of this group along with bassist Dugrenot), and musically it sounds like a cross between good early 70's jazz-rock (Soft Machine and Nucleus style) and Zeuhl music (more Zao than Magma). Graced with a double-headed parakeet paper collage for artwork, the album takes us into deep early jazz-rock ala Miles or Nucleus, where Bucchi's electric piano gets its share of exposition.

Starting on the 11-mins torrid fusion of Sleep Walker, SL is certainly not going faster than the speed of light, but Seffer's sax intervention drives the group red hot into the groove they chose, while Curbillon's guitar remains mainly rhythmic. The much shorter Pava is a slower builder but manages the same red-hot intensity. The even shorter Abra is more or less full on weird noises that simulates a newborn giggles and groans coming from Seffer's sax squeals and percussions, providing a bit of humour.

A squealy sax opens the flipside and the first few times, you'll check your stylus for dirt and clean the vinyl uselessly, but it's all part of the track's deliria and drama of Spanish Dream. Fundamentally, there aren't many differences between Seffer's material and Bucchi's, they're both fairly similar, stuck somewhere between Bitches Brew, Nucleus and mid-Soft Machine. The following Ballad is a bit of a bore, never getting past the late night or pre-dawn jazz noodlings. Fortunately the closing Ducky recuperates the same superb intensity present throughout most of the album.

Sean Trane | 3/5 | 2008-5-30

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